where your thoughts come to life.

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SPROUT IS MOVING!

Sprout is moving to a new URL: www.sproutmagazine.org! Don’t worry, all the old Sprout content (a.k.a. your amazing work) will move with us. We’re just revamping our look.

We’re very excited to announce this move, as well as our upcoming addition of a few new staff members to the Sprout family.

Thanks for sticking with us, readers. We hope you love the new Sprout as much as we do!

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The Political Science of Politics and Science

I hate to admit it, but I’m not a STEM girl. And I never will be.

Science is the discipline of organized knowledge of the things that be. It is the philosophy of the galaxies and every little atom that it holds. It is objective, it is factual, it is truth.

It would be ridiculous to say that science and its applications aren’t interesting. In fact, science is based upon interest itself: it is rooted in human curiosity, and executed by human cerebral ability. However, just because science itself is interesting, doesn’t mean it’s significant to the human condition.

Don’t get me wrong. I like learning the concepts behind science and math, and I like to know how things come to be and what they could be. But I don’t care about the knowledge that much. It isn’t significant in my daily thinking, because factual knowledge doesn’t control human interaction. No, that role is left up to emotion and its effect on cognition.

Here’s the thing about STEM: it’s removed from the people it is looking to serve. Of course, all forms of nature and states of being would not exist were it not for the theory of science and the mathematical calculations that come with it. However, the impact that science and math has on the world is much less interpersonal, and altogether more predictable. I want to influence people, and their opinions of me. For what is academic authority if no one is willing to acknowledge it?

Just think about the people we learn about at school, the people who leave a lasting impression in our mouth. We don’t learn about scientists nearly as much as we learn about our presidents, our dictators, and our revolutionaries - because those are the people who affect human lives in a way that demands recognition. Science and factual discovery, of course, improves our lives practically and reoccurs in our daily lives. The wheel, the engine, gunpowder - those discoveries and inventions shape the way we live today. But the majority of people don’t think about the discipline and countless trial and error behind those discoveries when we turn on a stove, drive a Toyota, or set off firecrackers.

We only care about science when we’re desperate for a solution. And we need science and math in the intricate operations of society. But really? We care more about the legends because they seem greater than anything we could ever be. We care more about the footprint that stomps on the earth and leaves a mark, not the worms crawling underneath the dirt that make the soil.

—Nina Tate, 17

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are you okay?

Catherine Zhao’s are you okay? comprises of five pieces that “focuses on the personal experience of having people asking me if I'm fine or not when I'm laughing, but never when I'm truly feeling down, and analyzes the irony of this situation.”

(Catherine Zhao is a 17-year-old senior at Lynbrook High School. She is the president of Lynbrook ArtReach, where she makes crafts for communities around the Bay Area. Catherine is an artist in 2D and 3D forms, exploring new mediums and uncomfortable ideas and insecurities. She also enjoys using her budding caricature and face-painting skills to volunteer at school events, such as homecoming or the upcoming school 50th-anniversary jubilee.)

Check out her other series, Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, here.

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Humans vs. Humanity and the Pursuit of Utopia

Preserving humans, despite the common misconception, is not the same as preserving humanity. Which is it that we really want to save? The difference is crucial to the future to our kind. 

The human condition is one of suffering. This may be because of greed, loss, suffering, hunger, disease, depression, or any other number of things we endure as a species. But the human condition is also one of growth.

Throughout the existence of mankind, we have striven to make life easier. This quest is asymptotic. Though we may get closer and closer to utopia, we will have less and less humanity. If we don’t have to work, we don’t have to explore, wonder, or study. It goes back to the Taoist belief that without sadness, we cannot know joy. Without the darkness, we would not know to appreciate light.  

The cultural and emotional definitions of our kind will fade. This is the kind of future Brave New World and other “dystopian” literature predicts. However, this is indeed utopia, but not for us—and not for humanity. It is because of this that suffering is assumed to have an almost divine depth. We strive for happiness but allow numbness to consume us. Perhaps this is connected to our desire to be saved. Perhaps this is the birthplace of religion. 

Why do we talk ourselves into believing a heaven? The answer to this is the same answer as to why Christianity was so popular in the Dark Ages. Not only do we crave significance, we want a reward for enduring the earth, suffering with a smile. Hell is a manifestation of our fears. Fear and guilt deny us not only the answers, but the questions that we need answers to. 

Religion and the fear of death is what pushes us to explore life and what lies beyond. Without fear, would we maintain morality? Without morality, would we maintain humanity? Fear dictates our belief and belief dictates our idols. What we cling to is what defines us.

—Avery B., 15

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Alone In My World

     I was alone. Alone in the world, alone in my world. Yes, I was walking through reality and existence, but to me, I was alone in the world. And I loved it. That’s what made the mornings at school alone so amazing.

    The sky would be a mesmerizing blue by the time I got there. The parking lot would be vacant, the hallways echoing with the emptiness. The classrooms were dark and the doors were closed. I walked casually, slouched and swinging my arms. I stopped in the middle of the stairs to adjust my jeans, then continued on. My fingers trailed the cool metal of the lockers, occasionally bumping into the cracks in the locker doors. I kicked a rock in my way and it skittered across the rough cement. The rock fluttered around, trying to escape, until it finally found the edge of the balcony and fell off. I leaned over the edge dangerously just to see, and hope, if the rock hits someone. It almost did. I giggled subtly. Too soon, a movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I tilted my head just in time to see an administrator walk briskly down the hall in my direction, with a serious looking binder in the crook of one arm. I immediately stiffened up and put my hands in my pocket. I pretended to be on my phone. As soon as she disappeared from view, I switched off my phone, and continued strolling through the hallways, looking this way and that. My back was completely bent over, as I looked for another pebble.

    As I passed a group of giggling girls, I straightened up again, and strode past them, as if I had somewhere to go. My face was set in a stern expression, eyebrows furrowed and lips turned down. I turned a corner, and sighed in relief. No one could see me again. My face relaxed, and my walk slowed. I sighed, and just as I was about to skip down the hallways, I spotted another one. This one was wearing a blue cardigan and a maroon scarf. Another classmate. My eyes avoided hers as she glanced my way. She moved on.

    I decided to find another empty hallway, as this one seemed less isolated as some of the others. Yet as more and more people started filtering in, opening their lockers or talking to friends, there were less and less hallways where I was hidden from view. Every corner of the school had someone, whether it was a teacher, an admin, or worse, a student. I couldn’t stroll anymore, or kick rocks, or trail my fingers. Instead, I looked straight ahead, smiled politely at people I knew, and walked with more posture. 

    Suddenly, I realized that everyone else did the same. They walked the same way as I did. They smiled politely and waved subtly. They walked straight ahead with a straight back and brisk steps. But they wouldn’t if I wasn’t watching. They wouldn’t if they weren’t at school. They wouldn’t have if no one was looking their way. Just as I didn’t when I was alone in my world.

    I am one of them. I am just another student at Monta Vista High School. I blended into the sea of students. Because we’ve all been taught the same, we’ve all been through the same experiences. We all act the same and say the same things. Yet it’s not a bad thing. Society has brought us into uniform, and uniform we will always be. We are given a set of rules to obey. Of course, whether we do so or not is our choice, at least that’s what they say. But if we do decide to behave around others the same way we behave alone in our room, people start wondering. They judge, society judges. And then we are thought of as weird, and are out casted. Thus, we all obey those never ending set of unspoken, assumed codes and morals. They are always in place and will never have at time limit. Because that is what society has given us. And that is what has given society the structure and system that is in place now. So, we cannot do anything but obey those rules. Well, until we are once again in our own world, of course.

—Melissa Wang, 16

(Born and raised in Cupertino, California, Melissa Wang is a senior and has published nonfiction and photographs on the literary website Teen Ink. She serves as Vice President for her school’s literary magazine, La Pluma, which has also published her work. She is fluent in Mandarin and proficient in Shanghainese and French. Loving travel, she has been to places in Europe and China such as Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Shanghai, Chengdu and Beijing, and she is looking forward to visiting Italy and Austria.)

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Whoever digs a pit will fall into it.

A series by Catherine Zhao, Whoever digs a pit will fall into it “revolves around the idea of being trapped in one's own mind and how you are the only one keeping you back from what you want to achieve.”

(Catherine Zhao is a 17-year-old senior at Lynbrook High School. She is the president of Lynbrook ArtReach, where she makes crafts for communities around the Bay Area. Catherine is an artist in 2D and 3D forms, exploring new mediums and uncomfortable ideas and insecurities. She also enjoys using her budding caricature and face-painting skills to volunteer at school events, such as homecoming or the upcoming school 50th-anniversary jubilee.)

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and our manhattan cigars

the City breathes in(sidious miasma permeate throughout streets and settle in permanent toxic layers of orange haze that paint fragments of the sky in poppy phantom hues

24/7 there are cars driving into the sunset-horizon but no happy endings to their romantic grime grey roads leading

Nowhere is safe|to be devoured by the ever- ex p a n d i n g

lungs of the City–in, in,in we go–is perpetual bliss: half lidded bloodshot dilated macrocosms of ambiguous dreams

—Clara Eugene P., 18

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Why You Shouldn’t Make Friends With Monsters

The first time you met me, I still had the blood of your predecessor still dripping from the corners of my mouth. See, I’d gobbled her up until there was nothing left of what once was. All that life, devoured by something she was trying to save. I do that sometimes. I tried to convince you that the blood was fake, that you had nothing to fear. You didn’t buy it. But, for some reason I still can’t understand,

You stayed.

The first time I had an anxiety attack in front of you, you held my hand even though my claws drew blood, even though I lashed out at everything I could touch. You made me feel almost human for a moment, with your thumb up against my pulse and mine on your carotid.

How cliché, a monster turning into a man with naught but a human’s heartbeat.

The first time you let me listen to your heart, we were lying in the middle of your living room. Controllers discarded, game paused, I remarked how rabbit-like and flighty it was. How easily I could crush it between my teeth. You laughed.

I was serious.

It was tempting.

I wish you could hate me for it.

The first time you noticed I had stopped eating in fear that I could no longer tell friend from food, you didn’t mind that I bit your hands. Just wrapped them up in bandages and told me that you were worried about me.

I’ll admit, your blood was the only thing that stirred my appetite.

I wish that I could die before you, just so you get to taste freedom from my clutches.

I hope someone cuts my claws before I rip your heart from your chest.

I wish that the villagers would awaken with their pitchforks and torches and burn everything down.

I hope you get away before I swallow you whole.

—Fenn De Bont, 15

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Piedmont Needs Feminism

A project led by the Feminism Club at Piedmont High School, “Piedmont Needs Feminism” is a photo campaign detailing the reasons why students need gender equality. Encouraged to express their thoughts, students are provided an outlet to explain why feminism is important to not only themselves and their community, but the greater world at large.

"I need feminism because... people still think catcalling is acceptable."

“I need feminism because I look great in dresses!”

"Feminism = Gender Equality. 'And if you still hate the word- it is not the word that is important but the idea and the ambition behind it.' -Emma Watson”

"I need feminism because women's sexual liberation was celebrated- the willingness to freely give and enjoy blowjobs and group sex, our willingness to experiment with anal- but ultimately many people revolted when we stated that our bodies were territories that they could not occupy at will. Those who were ready for female sexual liberation if it meant free pussy, no strings attached, were rarely ready for female sexual agency.”

"I need feminism because if I'm upset it doesn't automatically mean I'm on my period. I'm a person too. Period."

Check out more pictures from Piedmont Needs Feminism on their Facebook page.

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lucky

we are raised being told "you are so lucky look at everyone else how much they suffer you should be more thankful."

my father laughs and says my self confidence is "too much, too much. worry about something besides your face, okay?"

i do not tell him that i worry about the uncertain ground of my future, the friends who stop replying one night, too consumed by their own self loathing, and i cling to the beauty i have always been told i possess because it is the only thing i am sure of.

i do not say he is the lucky one because i am not one of millions — classmates, friends, rivals ­ — crying into their pillows one night and laying in the satin of a casket the next. i do not say he should be thankful,

because i am afraid.

—Kelsey K., 15

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A Cream in Time

We are piercing mint that burns with desire We are tart strawberry that stains vibrantly We are finest chocolate that doesn’t need sugar We are fragrant vanilla that is complex We are adventurous sorbet that travel the world

We are unique Melting the past We are the present Becoming the future

We are time & evolution Improving, yet deteriorating

We are cold mint that makes the winter lonely We are sour strawberry that blazes resentment We are bitter chocolate spit out by little children

Unchanging vanilla, stubborn Sorbet, confused as an outsider

We can be salted caramel cookies and cream butter pecan Or coffee marshmallow crunch

We are here, melting

—Michelle Wang, 17

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Flower Children

If you like to believe that children are wild flowers, growing in the mountains spontaneous and unattended with their graceful wave to the wind and their laughter able to clear the clouds, then you will be disappointed to find the children of this generation are troubled trees, sprouting in a concrete jungle with destruction distracting them from growing healthy roots, but growing roots fed instead by man made temptations. These trees will be lost and won’t stand for anything but will fall for everything if left alone to believe what they hear on the talking box. And you wonder, yes you wonder, how to get back to the wisdom of the children and the matters of the heart? Take time for a garden planted and tended, watched over and blessed. Then the children will be who they are meant to be: Simply flowers laughing in the sun.

—Dylan Escobar, 17

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[excerpt from journal; talking to myself]

I don’t know if I should write on this paper in pencil or pen, because pencil fades and can be rubbed away

But ink stays.

Do I want my words to make a quiet, solitary impact? or permanently place themselves in view?

Is boldness selfish Is modesty false Are contradictions even more broken?

Quiet war loud Silence lonely crowds dreaming of Abrupt change Tortured Routine ignored Gifts wishful hate,

I want you to die, I say, as I watch you die Dirty Ego Bully Child (child bullied) Knowingly winning

First place tastes bitter sweet

—Mar C.

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Lady

daddy, you once sang The Sound of Silence to me as a lullaby. daddy, i am a grown woman. i know what silence sounds like.

you say, keep your heart in your chest and your tongue between your teeth: here’s to swallowing the blood you wouldn’t let me spit out.

you christen me ladylike, but daddy, it’s gonna take more than a thesaurus to fool me.

i am eight percent blood and the rest is every word a man has ever forced me to swallow; i am forever an ugly, rotting mixture of flesh and yellow bile, fire, and white paint.

—Sophie G.

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[3AM gives questionable advice]

Never Regret Anything. You only have This Mind and This body so Live if not freely. Push away your pain with drinking, drugs, climbing to the roof and almost jumping once or twice. Take your pain and Dance with it until everyone looks attractive and your stepping in the Moon’s avenue. Skinny dip and get caught on camera, this is your cameo, steal all the nail polish your grubby little hands can carry. Take wine coolers from your local grocery store and chub them in a park at 5. Run away from home. Lie. Puke out of a car window. Get tattooed by a stranger. Wear all the beautiful things, touch the fabrics. Drape yourself in Silk because you don’t deserve any less for dragging around This Body. You Only have Only Life to aspire to be some obscure god or goddess. Party like it’s your birthday, bake, drink Bacardi like it’s your birthday. Love Picky, a lot, a few and far between. Love aggressive, forget love, your heart is lion strong and has only One Life to beat. Kiss all those you find Beautiful especially your reflection. Be your Lion Love

—Mar C.

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halo

i do not know much of anything when it comes to the logistics of it all. i know how to space and correct, where the comma goes and where it does not. they spoke of rhyme and meter and how to shatter structure at its roots. i know little of the history and i am asked: "how can you deconstruct what you do not know how to build?" knowing how it’s made does not mean you cannot create or destroy. i know the bliss of a beautiful day, inhaling spring where others have bloomed. i know the pain of lies, the way the truth did not break others the way it broke me. i know the exhilaration of chewing glass and cutting diamonds out of your own gums, rushing towards the edge only to careen back into a passionate lip lock – that same lock cut off with the stones weighing down heavy burdens in heavy pockets on heavy clothing because they are wet and you are drowning. staring up at your moon like it is crumbling into its own cataclysm (because it is). i have slept with inspiration hitting me like a freight train i cannot catch because it’s 2 AM and there is no getting up fast enough to write down the anxiety bubbling in my gut for no other reason than it’s routine inconvenience. to say i cannot create because i didn’t write the instructions is like saying i cannot exist because i didn’t fuck my own mother – who are you to scold me when you are too afraid to pick up your own pen? because someone is there to write it for you, someone can pull your arms through your sleeves and comb your hair, whisper saccharine approval for standing on one knee while they hoist you the rest of the way. your pride is your fault, your virus violent and cruel. you kill what you love because you don’t love. you despair. i know despair. but not your own because i am not you and you are not me. your halo is a broken crown and you have burnt your kingdom down.

—Allie McGinnis, 18

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flicker

i've watched those                               lonely        hearts sha tte r and c                         ru                             m                                 b                                    le,

ground  into  the  linoleum  with   (  open  )                    casket                     mournings, watched    lovers    weep    over   pavement                    stained    with     coffee     cup          r     i        g                           that  cannot   be          n             l                 bleached   away.                    e        s                         t

no amount of elbow grease saves the purity                    from crimson  s    p    r    a    y. fall  on all f    o    u    r    s praise     the      god    who    reeks    your    fear channels your pains steals        your innocence.

i've watched lonely hearts                    in their ample bodied misery worship within their own toxic          vindictive                      circles of  self destruction. personal intimate, ragged and ruined, debauched in their prayers to a tyrannical fist.

i've watched lonely hearts                      bleed    from    pallid    lips, shriek discordant tones in an effort to be heard ╾

                                                        silent.

as still as their dead hearts, yanked from their sockets.

the lights are out ╾                                    By God!

their lights are out.

—Allie McGinnis, 18